Markets, Globalization &

Development Review

Volume 1 Number 1 Article 4

2016

The Dynamics of the Local and the Global: Implications for

Marketing and Development
A. Fuat Fırat
University of Texas - Rio Grande Valley

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Recommended Citation
Fırat, A. Fuat (2016) "The Dynamics of the Local and the Global: Implications for Marketing and
Development," Markets, Globalization & Development Review: Vol. 1: No. 1, Article 4.
DOI: 10.23860/MGDR-2016-01-01-04
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The Dynamics of the Local and the Global: Implications for Marketing and
Development

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 F?rat: Dynamics of Local and Global

The Dynamics of the Local and the Global:

Implications for Marketing and Development
Introduction
Globalization has been deemed to be an inevitable force (Friedman 2000;
Pieterse 2000; Waters 1995). Many see this force to be in conflict with
local interests (Barber 1996; Jameson and Miyoshi 1998; Martin and
Schumann 1997). Consequently, globalization is often considered to be a
negative, imperialistic force, killing local identities, forcing uniformity of
culture and experience, and destroying independent self-determination
(Danaher and Burbach 2000). At the same time, globalization is
sometimes seen as a positive force, helping economic growth in poorer
parts of the world, bringing peoples of the world closer, and increasing
knowledge and understanding of each other among nations (Fukuyama
1993; Huntington 1997). Most positive reactions seem to be coming from
international bodies that further the goals of businesses and governments,
along with the global corporations and governments themselves. The
negative reactions tend to come from a loose coalition of citizens who
seem most concerned with the destruction of local life modes and
traditions, impoverishment of sectors that cannot merge into the global
economy, and cultural imperialism, as well as from some labor
organizations. In all cases, the debates tend to focus around the dynamic
of the local-global relations.
The intensity of the global-local dynamic has been felt in actions
that have materialized around the meetings of some of the most prominent
international bodies, such as the World Bank, the International Monetary
Fund, and the World Trade Organization (Danaher and Burbach 2000;
Thomas 2000). These actions are clearly seeking a different direction in
globalization, one that expands beyond economic success and growth
concerns and recognizes the cultural, organizational, and social diversity
and needs of local communities that are “integrated” into the global system
with little care for the often devastating effects of the required
transformations, or simply left out to disintegrate under the pressures of
globalism (Belk 2003). The reactions range from passive resistance to
armed struggles.
The forces of globalization rest on the economic successes of the
modern order that has fomented globalization, and propose it as the most,
indeed, the only, rational alternative for development, while increasingly
recognizing the need for some changes in global policies and governance.
Many local orders are rejecting the push toward globalization by depicting

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it in terms of colonization and aggressive destruction of local values and

traditions. On the other hand, more recent voices from the local
communities tend to be increasingly advocating an accommodation of
different orders instead of either/or options.
Interdependence of the Local and the Global
Whether globalization is negative or positive, however, the local and the
global have almost always been depicted as opposing and in conflict with
each other. In fact, the local and the global are interdependent and cannot
exist without each other. The local is necessarily always in relation to
(an)other. Without the presence of the other, there can be no cognition of
the local – all would be one and the same. Without the other, there is no
possibility of a (re)cognition of the global, because it is a multiplicity of the
local(s) that enables the presence of the global. Thus, the local and the
global require each other. In effect, that which does not contain a
multiplicity of locals is not global – it is simply provincial.
Recognition of the local always necessitated the presence of
something larger – at least the presence of two local(itie)s. A multiplicity of
the locals enables the presence of the global. Recognition of the global
necessitates the presence of the local. Conversely, presence of the global
is required for the (re)cognition of the local.
This impossibility of the presence of one without the other is largely
forgotten in contemporary discourse on the local and the global. As
already indicated, the local and the global are often positioned as
competing or opposing territories/spaces. Therefore, the complex
interdependence between the local and the global is left undiscovered.
Such discourse distorts and clouds our ability to have greater insight into
the plights and possibilities that cultures face.
Formation of Identities
The local recognizes its “localness” and develops self-consciousness as a
local through its reflection in the global. In the contemporary “globalized”
world, the identity of the local is reflected (back) to it by the global. Then,
the local embellishes the identity it is reflected. Indeed, as in the case of
individual identity (Gallup 1985; Lacan 1977), for local cultural identities to
form, presence of the other that enables one to distinguish itself as an
entity separate from others is required (Friedman 1994; King 1997). The
other – which in the case of the contemporary globalized world is primarily
the global – plays the role of the reflecting mirror, both making one (the
local culture) recognize its distinction as a separate entity and providing it
with the anchors for realizing aspects of its distinctness, indeed, its
identity.

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For example, the French realize their identity by recognizing the

differences that distinguish them from all others. The dimensions that
define the qualities along which differences are recognized, however, are
largely determined by the global standards, which, then, reflect to the
French how they are perceived by others. The French, then constitute
their own conception of French (cultural) identity on the basis of reacting to
the images they perceive as reflected in the global, in terms of agreements
or disagreements with these images. Through these reactions, which, of
course, may be different from different segments of French society, thus
highly complex, and counter-reactions to these reactions from the global,
complex and dynamic French identit(y)ies arise(s). This identity formation
is, because of its nature, always in flux, never conclusive, that is, in a state
of continual construction.
The Nature of Contemporary Globalization
While this process of identity formation applies under the contemporary
modern conditions of globalization, it has taken a special form. Global
media and global communications systems have enabled, and made
desirable, access to a multiplicity of cultures from many locals. Thus,
today, the global emerges as a mosaic of multiple locals in many localities
– a phenomenon that has been called the globalization of fragmentation
(Fırat 1997). In all major metropolises across the world one can find
representations from many locals. Whether one is in San Francisco, USA,
Bangkok, Thailand, İstanbul, Turkey, or Paris, France, along with other
metropolises, one can find aspects of Chinese, French, Italian, Indian,
American, German, etc., cultures, often clustered in enclaves such as the
Chinatown, and one can navigate the experiences of these cultures. The
French café, the Indian market, the USA shopping center, and the like, are
accessible all around the world (Featherstone 1991; Ger and Belk 1996).
Clearly, these representations of different cultures cannot be said to
be “total” representations of the local cultures. Rather, they appear mostly
as façades. This is, indeed, a specific character of contemporary
globalization. Contemporary globalization exhibits itself primarily as an
expansion of markets and of products that find interest in expanding
markets. Thus, in contemporary globalization, representations of the locals
take marketable, commoditized, commercialized forms. In effect, only the
marketized artifacts of local cultures find global representation. The
marketization of cultural artifacts is a function and a reflection of the
(corporate) market system, which increasingly dominates world politics
and conceptions of development. This dominance results in a special
emphasis on material economic values in gauging growth, development,

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and success of human society in modernity, and local identities

increasingly come to be defined by the commercially viable elements or
artifacts of cultures. In a global world that is based on the expansion of
markets, only the marketable (commercial) dimensions of local identities
are afforded global visibility. While, therefore, all cultures that afford
marketable qualities find expression in global markets, this expression is
only a commercial one. In this sense, no one culture is universal or
hegemonic across the world, except the culture of the market. The only
universal in contemporary globalization is the hegemony of this market
system.
Collapse of cultures to their marketable artifacts, their
representation through only this commercial dimension, degrades the
multi-dimensional cultural space to a two-dimensional façade (for a
schematic representation of this phenomenon, see Figure 1). The texture
and textuality that enables immersion into cultures is, thus, lost, at a time
when global consumers increasingly seem to seek greater immersion into
and navigation of a multiplicity of cultures (Featherstone 1991; Fırat 1997).
Figure 1: Cultural Reductionism

A Simple Schematic Depiction of the

Reduction of Culture to Its Marketable Elements

Multi-layered, multi-dimensional
Two-dimensional
cultural space
façade

Rich and deep

Flattened experience
cultural existence

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Organic versus Commercial Identities

In the complex, multi-dimensional and multi-layered texture and textuality
of local cultures, there exist organic linkages among the many historical
qualities that give birth to each culture’s artifacts. In the commercial façade
imposed through contemporary globalization all such linkages are
squashed or collapsed and destroyed. As a response to a tension due to
this collapse, an ongoing struggle between the organic and commercial
identities arises. This struggle is usually linked to and reflects an identity
struggle among segments of the local populations, especially between
those segments that act as agents of the global forces and those
segments that are either opposing to or left out of “benefiting” from the
results of globalization. Local identities are continually informed and
shaped by this struggle.
Marketing’s Reactions to Identity Struggles
Many in the marketing discipline have reacted to observations of local
identity struggles in times of contemporary globalization along the lines of
conventional modern economics. The impulse to regress and/or compress
the multi-dimensional human encounter into a unidimensional market
encounter (see Figure 2 for a schematic representation), found in modern
economics, has carried over to marketing perspectives on development.
Specifically, this impulse exhibits itself in paying exclusive attention to one
specific facet of value and efficiency. Instead of a complex conception of
value embedded in the complexity of life and culture, one particular
dimension of value is singled out, extracted, and isolated as the only one
that “counts!” In the ideological landscape of market-based global
economics, value is defined solely as market exchange value (Barnet and
Müller 1974; Ger 1999; Schmookler 1993). Then, this concept of value is
glamorized as the only solid criterion of achieving development – now
defined as economic growth – and tends to “bulldoze” all other
conceptions of value. In effect, a unidimensionalization of human
existence – a marketization of life – ensues, long recognized by critics of
market cultures (Marcuse 1964).
As depicted in Figure 2, human encounters result in learning, new
experiences and knowledge, which enrich and enlarge the knowledge-
experience networks that exist at both individual and community levels.
The concept of the knowledge-experience network used here is similar to
the associative networks or the schema and the scripts in knowledge
processes. That is, each new human encounter may cause an evocation
of relationships, connections, links to what is already experienced and
known by the individual or community, triggering rearrangements,

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expansions, questioning, meaning (re)orientations and, thus, enrichment

of what is in the knowledge or experience pool of the community or the
individual. Yet, when viewed simply as a market encounter, this richness
of the human encounter is reduced to point to an outcome along only one
dimension of this complex knowledge-experience network.
Figure 2: Human and Market Encounters

A Simple Schematic depiction of the

Collapse of Human Encounter to Market Encounter

HUMAN ENCOUNTER MARKET ENCOUNTER

WHO

WHAT

HOW MANY

AT WHAT VALUE

Knowledge-experience network Linear conception

as a complex

This point may be better illustrated by an example. Take a simple

human encounter that could occur between two parties. To contextualize
this human encounter in familiar grounds, let’s say that it takes place at a
local marketplace. While this encounter is at a marketplace, and the
purpose originally leading to it may be a desire for a material “market”
transaction, the outcomes are still much more complex than simply an
economic transaction. Imagine the thoughts that may be running through
each party’s mind following the encounter. Here is a representation of the
local party’s reaction:
… What a thing to wear, those shorts! Their funny skinny legs
showing like that. Don’t they have any idea of what people will
think? But, then, who cares. I wonder if I am being too rigid. They
must be comfortable on a hot day like this. It is a kind of freedom to
just do what feels comfortable and not buy into “the way.” I wonder
how I would feel if I wore some shorts to work tomorrow. Maybe it

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will be a statement others will notice. The story they told about
Afghanistan. I never thought of Afghanistan that way before. I have
to tell this to S., my granddaughter. What she was telling me about
her teacher’s depiction of Afghanistan seems to have a different
side to it. Must be nice to witness it firsthand. The way they were
bickering about what to get. What a waste of time. So inefficient.
There might be a play to it all, though. The way they were flirting
with each other in public too. Maybe it is all a part of it. How would
my spouse react if I acted like this? There might be a tension.
Would this tension translate into a more exciting sex life? Who was
it? Was it Omar Khayyam who wrote… I need to re-read those
verses. He knew then, and look how much we have learned to put
limitations on ourselves now. I am glad they did not buy what they
were considering. And at that price too! There is something to be
said about the way they were a team. The way they seemed to
steal those “secret” touches of their arms and legs. Wonder what
sex would be like if …
And a representation of the other party’s reaction:
… What a waste, standing around talking and talking. And for what
– a 57 cent trinket! But that laugh I got when I suggested a quarter
of the price asked for and he made that face – priceless! Never
seen a face like that in my life. Maybe I have to stop and smell the
roses more often. Rush, rush, rush. If I had laughed like that in my
country at someone’s face, they would have killed me. Well, maybe
not killed, but no kindness would be received. Funny how he
reacted. I wonder how such laughter is interpreted here. Who was
it, Foucault or Heidegger, no Nietzsche… Well, I have to brush up
on my reading. The laughter, what a relief. Maybe there is
something to be said about taking the time. I always wondered
about the way that cashier at the supermarket wore her vest.
Should I ask her, hit up a conversation? How will that be
interpreted? Buy and get out, that’s the way! The way the man
appeared from behind the curtain at the shop. Was that
wonderment in his eyes? And what kind eyes. The way he offered
the tea. What was he thinking? The way he held the tea glass. Is it
the tradition? Does it have a meaning? I have to tell J. about this
encounter. Her theory of social interaction; is it vindicated? The
slowness of life, the deliberateness of movement. I wonder what
sex would be like if …

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Admittedly, both of these excerpts are greatly truncated

representations from a highly complex and much larger network of
evocations. As is observed, the simple, short human encounter at the
marketplace has led both parties to question and rethink their received
knowledge-experience networks, provoking additions to and potential
enlargement of, therefore, the enrichment of each network, and, thus,
each life. This enrichment of knowledge-experience network is
development in human terms, what arguably ought to “count,” rather than
the truncated sense(lessness) of economic value accumulation. These are
very valuable results, when the totality of human existence is concerned
and considered.
What, however, is the typical modern marketing lesson that is often
drawn from such an encounter? It is something like this:
Bad marketing! Inefficient. No purpose. Nothing was bought or sold.
No money changed hands. The local economy did not get the
benefit of value added from the 57 cent transaction.
This simple example illustrates how much is lost and missed when
the human encounter is reduced to a market encounter. It should be no
surprise that so many people are so disenchanted by a world where such
reductionism dominates life and the valuations of development,
accomplishment, and happiness in life. Multi-dimensionality of existence is
crushed into unidimensionality, and the complex meaning and excitement
of human life experiences are condensed to market transactions.
Unfortunately, modern marketing and marketing scholars who have
adopted the market encounter worldview have contributed to this global
disenchantment of life. Making economic (market exchange) value the
only criterion of development and good life has caused much to be lost in
human existence and has constructed images and, thus, experiences of
poverty where much cultural and social richness exists. Marketing
scholars who have, with good intentions, hoped to contribute to global
development, reduction of misery, and dispersion of discrimination and
broad inequalities among world populations and segments have been
disheartened by insistent problems along these lines despite technological
breakthroughs and promises of economic growth.
It is now clear, by any method of calculation, that as long as the
single criterion definition of development (i.e., economic growth) continues
to be used, certain regions and nations of the world will never catch up
relatively with others, even when they accomplish great gains in absolute
terms. That is, a constant substantive difference in levels of economic
development will remain, thus perpetuating perceptions and conceptions

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of (relative) poverty. Such a defeating result of modern progress would not

be the consequence of a lack of development, but rather of the monolithic
construction of how development is detected or measured. That is, poverty
is in our measure of development, not in our diverse and complex ways of
living.
Modern Globalization, the Market, and Marketing
For radical improvements to marketing’s ability to help people and
communities across the world at this time of globalization, truly original
conceptualizations and theorizing is necessary. Because the issues that
can inform and determine global relief of problems that hinder efforts for
development, justice, and harmony are cultural issues that require cultural
solutions, redefinitions and reconstructions of principles and orientations
will have to be dealt at the cultural level. Modern thought, in its attempts to
rationalize and make modern interventions upon nature (Angus 1989) – or
the universe in general – efficient, has partitioned culture into domains,
most specifically, the political, social, and the economic, employing distinct
principles (democracy, civility, and value maximization, respectively) to
maximize the rationalization and efficiency in each domain. This
partitioning of the cultural human existence, and each domain losing touch
with the other, has also unidimensionalized observations and studies of
the human condition. Consequently, solutions to problems proposed from
each domain have, therefore, always fallen short due to the omission of
connections among the different dimensions of human existence. This
condition has especially intensified as one of the domains, the economic,
and its key institution, the market, have gained primacy over others, as
also the neoliberal ideology has become more dominant (Harvey 2007).
Often, the market, as it has been idealized and constituted in
modern economics and in modern societies, and the marketplaces of
traditional and contemporary times have been all considered under the
construct of ‘market’ (Peñaloza and Venkatesh 2006). This, while at times
helpful in recognizing the possible alternative organizations of relations
and transactions among people, also clouds some significant differences
between ‘the market’ of modernity, and marketplaces, such as the agora
or the bazaar. While the modern market is singularly constructed around
the idea of exchange of values, and also, for example, different from other
forms of transactions found in human history, such as redistribution and
reciprocity (Polanyi 1957), marketplaces have been and are constructed
around cultural relations. Bazaars and the agoras, for example, were less
about economic exchanges and more public arenas where social,
educational, political, kinship, etc., interactions occurred.

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It is, therefore, necessary that, despite some similarities, a

distinction be made between ‘the market’ and marketplaces. The market,
being an institution with its norms and principles, for example, the
necessity of equivalence of the values exchanged for efficient allocation of
economic resources, has proved to have substantial resilience to
withstand and coopt resistance and counter-market movements and
ideologies (Kozinets 2002). The market is known to thrive on resistance
and coopt forms proposed by resistance by emptying these forms of their
original contents (Fırat 2001). Consequently, hopes that the market will
provide a space for resistance or ‘consumer-citizenship’ (Arnould 2007)
are often doomed to failure within cultures dominated by the market. For
any hope for continuity, spaces separate from the market have to be
constructed (Thompson and Coşkuner-Ballı 2007), yet often they also
eventually become coopted by the market.
Modern marketing, in its micro, managerial orientation was,
understandably, a response to the need for organizing a field of
knowledge and practice to further human and organizational capabilities in
order to achieve goals that were inherent to the modern project and order.
Yet, this largely economist (and often highly individualistically
psychological) orientation in modern marketing has fallen into the same
trap discussed above of articulating a unidimensional, therefore, otherwise
blindsided view and understanding of the human experience in the
universe.
Modernity began with the becoming prevalent of the idea that
human beings could control and determine their own destiny by controlling
nature – which existed in the material conditions of the universe – through
an objective understanding of its underlying order by using science and,
then, developing scientific technologies that would afford them power over
nature’s forces (Angus 1989). Thus, modern culture flourished with an
emphasis on the project of building a grand future for humanity, and the
foundation of this grand future was to be in surrounding human beings
with products of their own making – for example, well engineered houses,
medicines, etc. – in order to mediate and buffer nature’s impositions upon
humans, thus, eventually taking control over from nature. Building toward
this grand future, therefore, meant that more and more people needed to
be supplied with more and more products of scientific technologies, often
also interpreted in terms of providing greater comfort and convenience for
people. Modern marketing, then, in its micro, managerial orientation, was
conceptualized as the provision and making accessible of products to
people (now conceived as consumers) that they “needed” in order to
increase and improve their control over their own lives.

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As this materialistically, economistically single-minded conception

of how human beings can improve their lives by surrounding themselves
with more and more products of their own making proves flawed and
deficient, it falls upon marketing scholars who are more holistically
oriented to develop frameworks and concepts that will try to overcome the
deficiencies. There is widespread disenchantment across the world among
those who lack and even those who have ample material affluence as
witnessed in polls or in popular literature (Martin and Schumann 1997;
Pieterse 2001; Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner 1997). The causes for
this disenchantment are sometimes blamed on faulty application of the
reigning concepts and frameworks – for example, economic growth
advocates in “developing” countries often express that many of their
products are excluded from free trade because of protectionist policies of
“developed” countries. Often, however, there is a tacit recognition of the
paucity of the principles and criteria (frameworks and concepts) that guide
our valuations of what constitutes meaningful life. This prevalent sentiment
is most forcefully expressed today in the popular movements against the
policies of world development institutions, such as the World Bank, the
International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization, as
mentioned earlier in this paper. This expression is felt to such a degree
that it has caused transformations within the thinking and discourses of
these institutions themselves (Thomas 2000; Wallach and Sforza 1999).
Clearly, a different world is sought by many.
Conclusions
As it should be no surprise that disenchantment occurs when multi-
dimensionality of life is reduced to a single façade, it should also be no
surprise that people seek a different world when development and
progress are defined simply in terms of a market encounter, reducing the
richness of the human encounter to a single dimension. New and insightful
definitions of development and, accordingly, of marketing are required if
disciplinary fields wish to be of service to humanity’s (re)enchantment.
The discussions above may point to a beginning in this endeavor.
Definition of development must capture the depth and complexity of this
phenomenon, refusing to collapse the richness of human existence to one
or a few of its aspects. A first attempt at appreciating the complexity and
richness may begin with the knowledge-experience network alluded to
earlier. Using this idea, development can de defined as the enrichment of
life in terms of increasing or improving the complexity of knowledge-
experience networks that inform life, that is, human actions, thoughts, and
meanings. We can say, then, that development has occurred if an

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individual’s or a community’s knowledge-experience network is enlarged,

thus becoming more complex. This means that individuals in a developed
community are able to comprehend and experience a greater, broader
spectrum of existence rather than be limited to less. Only a very limited
part of this existence has to do with products and market exchange. Much
involves other dimensions of the human encounter, such as the ability to
experience and appreciate “other” ways of living, relating, being, and
communicating. We can say, that is, the two parties in the simple example
of an encounter earlier related have experienced development because
the encounter – despite the failure of the market transaction to occur – has
laid the foundation for the expansion (thus, becoming more complex) of
each party’s knowledge-experience network, providing for each the ability
to comprehend, live, and relate to a greater set of ways of being. That is,
each party’s life has been enriched. As these individuals have experienced
development, we can say that a community that allows and enables such
enrichment is also more developed.
Marketing, then, if not simply conceptualized as a tool of modern
market expansion, but an institution of human development in the sense
defined above, can be defined as the design and facilitation of processes
that empower individuals who, through their communities, seek to achieve
development. This definition frees marketing from its modern limitations
and its singular linkages to the market, and allows it to contribute to the
enrichment and enchantment of human lives.
Marketing scholars can begin from these simple origins and work
on enlarging and enriching the frameworks and concepts to participate in
the creation of a different world. The challenge the marketing scholars
face is this: Shall we find, as a community of scholars, the strength and
the creativity to construct knowledge that will so empower humanity, and
liberate us from the shackles of received, dated definitions and principles?
After all, a different world that is sought will begin when we begin to find
our different concepts and constructs.
To accomplish this historic task, marketing scholars have to
conduct research into discovering the key elements that contribute (have
historically contributed) to transformation and construction of modes or
organizations of life, then theorize how these key elements can be re-
conceptualized in order to allow and facilitate designs of new
organizations of human lives. In their book Empire, Hardt and Negri
(2000), illustrate an example of how systemic transformations have taken
place across history. They show how differing ideologies and classes or
interest coalitions that promote these ideologies struggle through
“constituting” stages until a certain set of institutionalizations are

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“constituted” and begin to normalize the rules that guide relations,

interactions, and contemplations among and of members of the society.
These institutionalizations, then, tend to foster a certain organizing
principle that permeates the reasoning people employ to execute their
actions as well as a human subjectivity that facilitates the type of agency
represented by such actions (Fırat and Dholakia 2016). We need to focus
attention on these institutionalizations, organizing principles, and
subjectivities, and any other key elements research discovers, to promote
a deeper understanding of the human condition in order to formulate new
vocabularies that represent and realize transformations and new orders of
human experience.

Two-dime

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